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A PRESENT PERIL. 



ADDRESS 

BY 

joh:n^ k^icpiaeds, 

Solicitor-General of the United States, 

AT THE 

FOUNDERS' DAY BANQUET 



OP THE 



UNION LEAGUE OF PHILADELPHIA, 



NOVEMBER 23, IDOl. 



.9 



iN BXCHANQK. 

IVIAR 1 3 1916 



T A prese:n^t peril. 



Address by JOHN. K. RICHARDS, Solicitor-General of the United 
States, at the Founders' Day Banquet of the Union League of 
Philadelphia, November 23, 1901. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Union 

League: 

Before turning to the subject of my address, I can 
not refrain from expressing my grateful appreciation 
of the honor of being invited to be one of the speak- 
ers at this dinner in honor of the Founders of the 
Union League. From the days when the regiments 
raised by this patriotic orga>iT(i'a<aUto!$ marched forth at 
the call of Abraham Linc?^fn.' in defence of the Union 
of the States, the potent force of the Union League 
of Philadelphia has been steadily and effectually ex- 
erted on the side of liberty, of justice, and of good 
government. It is because of this, and because there 
are yet things to be done, that I shall take advan- 
tage of the occasion to discuss seriously a matter 
which, touching as it does the security of the Gov- 
ernment, concerns vitally each and every citizen of 
the Republic. . : 

On the 6th of September, in a time of unexampled, 
prosperity and at a national celebration of peace and 
progress, the President of the United States, while 
10438—01 1 



receiving the people, was shot down in cokl blood, 
even as he reached out his hand in kindly welcome to 
the wretched assassin. The dastardly deed shocked 
the world, and, when understood, appalled civilization. 
The annals of history do not record a more causeless 
crime. 

Personally, the victim was of all men the last to 
excite envy or malice. He was a man of the people, 
chosen by the people, whose noble and unselfish life 
had been devoted wholly to their welfare and advance- 
ment. Coming- from the people, he never lost his 
sympathy with them, or his belief in the ultimate 
justice of their judgments. In bearing the burden of 
his high office he constantly leaned on them, and they 
as steadfastly stood by him. He was as good and 
kind as he was great and wise. His gracious and 
considerate course drew to him the hearts of his 
countrymen of all parties and every section. He had 
not an enemy in the world. Oh, irony of Fate, that 
such a man should be singled out for slaughter. 

Oflicially, he was the twice-chosen Chief Magistrate 
of a free people, whose government was dedicated to 
liberty and justice under law, and has yet to fail in 
devotion to the high ideals of its framers; a nation 
founded as a defense against tyranny and for years the 
refuge of the oppressed of every land. In his own 
career was embodied the glorious possibilities of life in 
this land of freedom, where every man in the long run 
is what he makes himself, and where every man, thank 
God, has a chance to make the most of himself 



3 

Nothing in the character or career of the President, 

nothing in the nature of the Government of which he 

was the chosen head, offered any rational explanation 

of the dreadful crime; but its cause found early avowal: 

"I am an anarchist; I did ni}^ duty." 

This declaration threw over the tragedy a lurid 
light. Investigation confirmed its accuracy. An ex- 
amination of the criminal failed to disclose any evi- 
dences of insanity. He was a young man, born in 
this country, educated in the common schools, in good 
health, and with unimpaired mind. He was a believer 
in the religion of his fathers and in the Government of 
his country until he fell under the fatal influence of the 
anarchists. He attended their meetings, he listened to 
their harangues, he drank in their doctrines. The 
poison saturated his soul. He abjured his religion, 
he renounced his country, he devoted himself to the 
destruction of society. He became, what every 
anarchist is at heart, an apostate, a traitor, an outlaw. 
He shot the President, not for anything he had done as 
President, but because he was the President. He shot 
him, not because he was the head of a bad govern- 
ment, but because he was the head of a government. 
"The better the government, the worse the crime of 
being its head." The blow was aimed at the Govern- 
ment and the moral, social, religious, and political 
institutions it stands for. It was civilized society 
which the assassin sought to destroy. He would have 
killed us all but he could not, so he killed the chief 
among us, our chosen representative and highest 
servant. 



What can Congress do, under the Constitution, to 
protect our President, punish his assailant, and prevent 
the spread of the detestable doctrine which inspired 
this atrocious crime f A demand for Federal legisla- 
tion exists — legislation which will prevent as well as 
punish. Obviously this demand can not be met sat- 
isfactorily b}^ the observation that anarchistic crimes 
are the result of social discontent, and the plea that 
before we apply di'astic measures we should, in justice, 
remove the cause of the discontent. All crime, in a 
sense, is the result of social discontent. That neither 
excuses the crime nor justifies its toleration by Govern- 
ment. Society is not perfect, nor can we make it so. 
There will always be cause for discontent — cause for 
complaint; but there is less cause liei'e than anywhere 
on the face of the globe. Again, it is not discontent, 
or resulting complaint, that we should seek to repress, 
but crime. Complaint calling for reform through law- 
ful channels is wholesome, but complaint which coun- 
sels crime is not only pernicious but in itself criminal. 

In the first place, plainly the President of the United 
States ought to be protected by the law of the United 
States. Not only his safety but the dignity of the 
Republic demands this. The President takes an oath 
that he will "faithfully execute the office of President 
of the United States" and will ''preserve, protect, and 
defend the Constitution of the United States." This 
Constitution enjoins him "to take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed." The solemn obligation thus im- 
posed is not intermittent, but continuous. From the 



time he takes the oath until he dies or retires, wherever 
he may be, without interval or cessation, he is Presi- 
dent of the United States, and engaged in executing 
that office. And for this reason the power of the 
nation should safeguard and protect him always and 
everywhere. Authority to do this is clear. Every 
right secured l^y the Constitution may be protected by 
Congress, and there is no higher right under the Con- 
stitution, no right whose free exercise is more vital to 
the Constitution, than the right of '' faithfully execut- 
ing the office of President of the United States." A 
murderous assault upon the President, aimed as it is at 
the life of the Government, imperils the security of the 
whole country, and whether successful or unsuccessful, 
should be punishable by death. 

But suppose Congress supplies the obvious omission 
in the Federal law and adequately punishes the crime, 
must it leave untouched the mahgnant agitators who 
inspire it? And here I am reminded of what Abraham 
Lincoln said to those who protested against the depor- 
tation of Mr. Vallandigham : 

Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who 
deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wih' agi- 
tator who induces him to desert ? 

Can nothing be done to exclude anarchists and sup- 
press anarchism! Do political or constitutional rights 
stand in the way ? Does the inalienable right of revo- 
lution or the Anglo-Saxon heritage of freedom of 
speech safeguard anarchism? Let us briefly consider 
this matter. 



In the first place, I have not been impressed by the 
assertion that anarchism — by which I mean the doc- 
trine that all existing- g'overnments should be destroyed 
by the assassination of their rulers and the terrorism 
of their people — is political in nature, in the sense that 
crimes committed in its name should be deemed 
political and their perpetrators afforded international 
protection. 

A crime committed in an attempt to revolutionize a 
g-overnment, that is, to change its form, may be 
rightly regarded as political, and its perj^etrators pro- 
tected against extradition. But anarchism is not revo- 
lutionary in this sense ; it does not seek to destroy one 
government and substitute another, but to destroy all 
government and leave none. The nations are not so 
much concerned about a government's form as about 
its existence. All- they demand is an authority which 
will protect persons and property, preserve peace and 
order, and fulfill international obligations. For this 
reason the right of revolution is recognized; but a 
crime committed in an attempt to destroy all govern- 
ment strikes at the root of all social institutions, and is 
therefore directed not against a particular government, 
but against civilized society itself. The crime of the 
anarchist, proceeding from a revolt against society and 
being directed at the law which holds society together, 
is essentially the act of the common criminal, and 
should be treated as such. For this reason I submit 
that not only should the anarchist who assassinates a 
ruler be extraditable, but anarchistic conspiracies here 



should be suppressed and punished regardless of the 
locality of the contemplated assassination. 

In the next place, I submit that the constitutional 
guarantee of "the freedom of speech" does not stand 
in the way of sujipressing the pernicious propaganda 
of anarchism. Anarch3^ is the absence of govern- 
ment — a condition where there is neither law nor 
authority; and the modern doctrine of anarchism 
seeks to bring about anarchy by acts of terrorism — 
the assassinarioii of rulers and the slaughter of the 
people. It uses the dirk and pistol for tlie ruler and 
the bomb for the people and police. This is not a case 
of theorizing about social or political conditions or 
questions. Visionaries who prefer to shut their ejes to 
things as they are may theorize about a time to come 
when, by the elcAation of humanit}^, no law will be 
needed to control man in his relations with his fellows, 
and everyone of his own accord, without compulsion 
of law, will respect the rights of all others. But the 
atrocious doctrine of anarchism is not visionary, but 
practical. While it uiay look to the future, it acts in 
the present. It does not preach progress, it demands 
destruction. It does not seek to lift man above the 
need of law, it aims to trample law under the foot of 
man. It wars against all government, because govern- 
ment means law, and law means enforced respect for 
the personal and property rights of others. It is not 
liberty that anarchism demands, but license — license 
to disregard and defile every right sacred to civilized 
man. It has respect for neither home, church, nor 



state. All those ties which hold society together — the 
ties of marriage, of morality, of religion, of patriotism — 
it seeks to tear asunder. The tender home affections, 
the sacred consolations of religion, the inspiring love 
of country and of flag, must all go, because all are 
grounded in reverence for authority. Anarchism 
preaches progress by a leap backward into the degra- 
dation of primeval savagery, where brutish appetites 
alone held sway. 

Solus populi suprema lex. — The right of self-preserva- 
tion is as vital to the state as to the individual. The 
Constitution forbids Congress to "make any law 
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of 
the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to 
petition the Government for a redress of grievances;" 
but all these rights are to be reasonably construed 
and lawfully exercised. The freedom of speech for 
which our fathers fought was not the right to ad vo- 
cate the destruction by force and violence of the Gov- 
ernment they founded. The right to criticise a 
condition, whether political or social, does not include 
the pri\alege of counseling crime as a protest against 
its continuance. Let who will "forerun his time" in 
advocating a condition wlien all things shall be held 
and enjoyed in common, for no law can touch him; but 
a pernicious fellow who preaches theft as a protest 
against property may be punished without any serious 
fracture of "the freedom of speech." 

It is unnecessary to amend the Constitution in order 
to obtain the power to suppress anarchism. It is true 



9 

that the assemblage of anarchists and the preaching- of 
their doctrines can not be punished as treason, for to 
constitute treason there nnist be an actual levying of 
war. But acts directed at the life of the Government 
are ]mnishable at the discretion of Congress, although 
they do not amount to treason under the Constitution. 
The great Chief Justice Marshall said upon this point 
(4 Cranch, 126): 

Crimes so atrocious as those which have for their 
object the subversion by violence of those rights and 
those institutions which have been ordained in order to 
secure the peace and happiness of soeiet}-, are not to 
escape punishment because they ha^e not ripened into 
treason. The wisdom of the legislature is competent 
to provide for the case. 

The right of the United States to exclude alien 

anarchists and to deport such as have not yet become 

citizens must be conceded. The Supreme Court lias 

held that as a sovereign nation the United States is 

endowed with the ^^ower, essential to self-preservation, 

of excluding all aliens whom it may deem dangerous to 

the peace of the State, and of expelling or deporting^ 

all such not yet naturalized. This power ma}'-, at the 

discretion of Congress, be intrusted for enforcement to 

the Executive. Evidently it was to this inherent and 

essential right of sovereignty that Abraham Lincoln 

referred when, in his last message, he said respecting 

slave traders: 

For myself, 1 have no doubt of the power of the 
Executive, under the law of nations, to exchide ene- 
mies of the human race from an asjdum in the United 
States. 

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10 

If Congress intrusts to the President the power to 
exclude ahen anarchists and to deport all unnaturalized 
ones, 1 fancy it will not l)e difficult to put in operation 
an effective plan of ridding the country of these 
bloody-minded pests. 

Some question is made as to the wisdom of a 
repressive policy. It is said that repression will be 
ineffectual or will provoke retaliation. A trial of the 
policy will disclose whether either prediction is war- 
ranted. Surely the time for action has come. No 
more atrocious crime can be committed than the one 
for which we know anarchism is directly responsible. 
I take the view that it is -safe to repress crime, no 
matter in wliat guise presented or how widespread and 
reckless its adherents. No State can safely counte- 
nance crime, and especially crime against itself. 
Moreover, the Government owes a duty to young, 
impressionable minds. It has no right to expose them 
to contamination and corruption. A doctrine under 
the l)an of law is less likely to attract adherents than 
if permitted to be openly advocated. Anarchists are 
insurg-ents ao-ainst civilization, would-be assassins of 
society, enemies of the human race. By the concur- 
rent action of civilized nations they ought to be placed 
under the ban of universal law. The red flag of 
anarchy should be driven from the land as the black 
flag of piracy has been driven from the sea. 

O 



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